November 2016

November 30, 2016

In our rather controversial times, it is often the case that the least talented or qualified person ends up getting the best job.

Indeed meritocracy - a system that rewards merit with success - has become globally unpopular, even though in some sectors, such as the fashion industry, it has probably rarely existed.

It is not a secret that, in fashion, ability and talent are often secondary to your looks and to how aesthetically or physically attractive you appear in a photograph. Besides, in fashion, silence is preferred to any kind of conceptual, philosophical or political disquisition about serious issues such as society or economy.

Being frivolous, photogenic, keeping your mouth shut, boasting an Instagram account with millions of (fake? real?) followers and giving the best presents to the right people in the industry, guarantees a designer the support (features, positive reviews, contracts with shops...) of many key players in this industry.

In the last few years we have for example seen a few unsuspecting labels and designers becoming rather popular for the aura of coolness built around them by selected editors, high profile bloggers and trend forecasting agencies - think about hip Gosha Rubchinskiy and his soccer casuals or Vêtements revomiting Martin Margiela 20 years later and being hailed as the freshest and most innovative thing around rather than just a temporary tribal cult for fashionistas (but the list of young and hip labels with very little to say could go on and on...).

In this chaotic mess reigning supreme in the fashion industry there is an unassuming Russian design duo that is not enjoying the rewards of other labels, even though they should probably be more successful than them - Nina Donis (Nina Neretina and Donis Pouppis).

Their well-researched and wearable collections make them not just the best Russian designers around, but part of a very limited group of fashion designers who seems to have managed to preserve their integrity in an otherwise frivolous world.

The duo's A/W 2016/17 collection moves from Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin's painting "Bathing of the Red Horse", a symbolical work that summarizes three inspirations - Russian icons, Byzantine frescoes that inspired the Russian classical iconography, and Neoclassicist art.

There are other influences, though, in this collection going from memories of childhood and hard sugar candies or kids' attire from New Year's Eve to Mickey Mouse and Olive Oyl, with a touch of interior design represented by Soviet enamelware and a few references to cinema with Alisa Brunovna Freindlich in Office Romance, American icon Marilyn Monroe and Fanny and Alexander by Ingmar Bergman.

The result of this mix of inspirations is a well-balanced collection of separates and dresses revolving around a limited colour palette comprising black, white and camel with a splash of red.

The designs are simple with oversized dresses and versatile tops at times with large Peter Pan collars, matched with skirts and pants firmly held in place with a thick cord evoking the world of sailors.

Most pieces included in the collection are minimalist yet well-structured while embellishment is limited to the collar line or the skirt and dress hems with a subtle row of sparkling Swarovski crystals and gems, a reference to the festive Christmas season, but also to Byzantine frescoes and to crafts - all the crystals are indeed appliqued by hand, a process that takes the duo 14-16 hours.

If you want to know more about Nina Donis you should check the video "Crash Course in Russian Culture by Nina Donis" (embedded at the end of this post). Recently released on YouTube, it shows their personal Russian inspirations in an imaginative collage-like style. There's a smiling Yuri Gagarin at the beginning; then Leningrad porcelain leads to a red square evoking Malevich's art.

Then we are catapulted in the world of literature via illustrations from children's books and Eugene Onegin, Alexander Pushkin's novel in verse. For a while it feels like having a walk in a bookshop on a bleak and cold Moscow morning, but then suddenly the mood swings to Russian forests, the anticipation of New Year's Eve and love, the '80s music scene and the '90s raves, a time of hope and enthusiasm that was too soon dispelled by other worries.

Shot in a postmodernist style, the video reflects the style of Nina Donis' moodboards, infused with a passion for history and culture, but also with subtle messages of protest and featuring images assembled in a coherently incoherent collage linked to art, film and music. In this case you almost expect at some point to hear New Order playing in the distance as the images and the way they are arranged and styled calls to mind the post-punk aesthetic injected with electronic and dance music that characterised the videos of the Manchester band.

There is actually another reason why, after watching the video, we should respect Nina Donis even more: their invisible presence and the fact that they always put their inspirations and clothes before themselves (like Margiela did...). In a world ruled by too many egomaniacs and where the cult of the self has damaged the substance, this is truly and genuinely revolutionary.

November 29, 2016

A few years ago German artist Diana Scherer developed several natural sculptures that she dubbed "Nurture Studies". The latter consisted in a series of flowers forced to grow from seed over a six-month period in pots and containers characterized by different shapes and silhouettes.

At the end of the process she removed the vases that, acting like restraining corsets, had sculpted the earth over the course of the months, and left the roots exposed. Scherer than passed to visually document this display of strength (the roots growing, twisting, almost struggling to break free from the vase) and fragility (the roots are usually concealed, but in this case they are left exposed and they are therefore vulnerable) taking pictures of each flower.

For her latest project, "Interwoven", Scherer was once again inspired by the dynamics of belowground plant parts and by the elements that were the starting point behind "Nurture Studies" - soil, seeds, roots and their hidden, underground processes.

Charles and Francis Darwin performed several experiments about plant biology that they recorded in the volume The Power of Movements in Plants. According to the Darwins, while plants may not move from the spot where they are rooted, they are not passive organisms. One of their most controversial proposition was the "root-brain" hypothesis, that is that roots behaved as do lower animals with their apex seated at the anterior pole of the plant body where it acts as a brain-like organ.

Scherer transformed the root system - Charles and Francis Darwin's brain of the plant - into an intricate tapestry. The rugs, tapestry pieces, and prototypes of the experiments Scherer developed are visually striking. The best pieces are definitely her exercises in root system domestication that led her to develop a series of soil tiles or textile swatches decorated with what may be defined as architectural patterns.

These natural tiles or geotextile swatches are proof of the collective desire of man to control nature, and they are made by the artist using subterranean templates as moulds. During the growth process the roots conform to the patterns and the root material weaves or braids itself. For this research, Diana Scherer collaborated with biologists and ecologists from the Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

"Charles Darwin was the first to watch the behaviour of plant roots. In his book The Power of Movements of Plants, he describes how roots do not passively grow down, but move and observe," Scherer states on her site. "A root navigates, knows what’s up and down, observes gravity and localizes moisture and chemicals. Darwin discovered that plants are a lot more intelligent than everybody thought. For contemporary botanists, this buried matter is still a wondrous land. There is a global investigation to discover this hidden world. I also want to explore it and apply the ‘intelligence’ of plants in my work."

"Interwoven" and "Nurture Studies" are currently on display in the Serre at Hôtel Droog (Staalstraat 7B, 10JJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands, until 9th December 2016).

November 28, 2016

Traditional costumes and the specific attire of a country or a region have often inspired fashion designers throughout the decades. At times contemporary designers reinvented and adapted traditional elements or mixed various details and motifs from different eras and countries in the same piece, coming up with original transnational styles (that in more recent years generated infringements of copyrights or cases of cultural appropriations...). Yet there was a time when people created their own transnational styles without the intervention of a fashion designer, but simply by getting to know other cultures.

A great example? The old Frisian port town of Hindeloopen in the 17th and 18th centuries. This was a golden time for the town: people would spend money on goods imported by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the houses of local sea captains were a mix of richly decorated wooden Dutch furniture, fabrics from India and Chinese porcelains.

Through these many influences Hindeloopen ended up looking very different from the rest of the Friesland: the town created indeed its own trademark style characterised by a juxtaposition of Dutch and exotic elements, local crafts and handmade pieces from all over the world.

By the late 18th century trade collapsed and Hindeloopen was isolated. The population focused on fishing rather than trade and the flow of foreign influence stopped, but by then the mix of styles had already been established, it continued and came to be known as trademark Hindeloopen.

In 1878 the colorful Hindeloopen room captured the hearts of visitors to the World Exhibition in Paris. The room showed a typical Hindeloopen interior and came to be known as typically Dutch. After the World Expo, the room travelled all over the world.

An exhibition at the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden (The Netherlands) currently retraces the history of Hindeloopen. The event allows to explore a traditional Hindeloopen room with wallpapers and old furniture and prints, but the museum also wanted to show how the Hindeloopen style influenced contemporary artists.

To this aim the curators brought in new pieces by modern designers: Christien Meindertsma (well-known for her textile and knit projects) created, in collaboration with Roosje Hindeloopen, a new furniture collection - comprising a table, chairs, cupboards, a stepladder, a box, spicemills and rugs - decorated with Hinderloopen motifs such as flowers, birds and garlands.

Last week a new fashion piece was added to the event, an embroidered dress covered with flowers matched with traditional Dutch clogs from Viktor & Rolf's "The Fashion Show" (A/W 2007) collection. The gown was inspired by the quirky Hinderloopen style and gave an avant-garde twist to the display. The exhibition is on at the Fries Museum until July 1, 2019, but V&R's gown will be on display until October 29th 2017.

November 27, 2016

In the previous post we looked at a project during the 15th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice (ending today) that suggested solutions for the current refugee crisis. The conventional procedure is that refugees wait in temporary shelters until a country receives them. Years and even decades may pass, though, before their temporary status is approved. In the meantime governments and international agencies may not act as quickly as needed, finding it hard to justify investing money for a situation that won't last forever, and may turn to creating temporary shelters that could be quickly removed. Still, guaranteeing good living conditions remains a priority, and specific examples of how to do so can be found in countries that have faced long refugee crises. One of such examples is in Western Sahara, a country located at the western edge of the African continent.

This former Spanish colonial territory was occupied since 1975 by Morocco and Mauritania. A guerrilla war ensued between the occupying forces and the Western Saharan population - the Sahrawis.

Most Sahrawis flew into Algeria where they settled as refugees and proclaimed independence of the Western Sahara on February 27, 1976. Rabouni, the first camp that was established in 1976, is capital of the refugee nation.

The Sahrawi developed their own architectural tools and design methodologies, based on opposite forces such as transience and liminality, permanence and temporality, and tradition and modernity. They employed tents and mud to create their structures and the pavilion at the Giardini pays homage to this typology and this material. The pavilion is indeed a tent decorated inside with tapestries and carpets showing maps and territories, woven by the National Union of Sahrawi Women.

Tents represent the traditional architecture of the desert, so in this case nomadic life inspired a solution; mud is instead perceived as a permanent form of architecture, a traditional technique pointing at an archaic heritage, while weaving is conceived as a craft, an ideal technique to produce decorative pieces with an informative added value. In this case the mud allows to improve conditions and at the same time makes sure that the material will go back to the earth when the refugee camp is no longer needed. The project shows therefore how typology, materials and techniques can become the foundations to create an identity.

Entitled "Places for People", a title referencing Austrian-American architect and designer Bernard Rudofsky, the pavilion is inspired by the constant waves of refugees arriving in Europe and representing a challenge for the institutions and the civil society as well.

Rudofsky's writings and researches focus on elementary aspects of life such as eating, sleeping, sitting, lying and washing, and on how architecture can help people meet these needs.

Moving from these same themes and approaches, the Austrian intervention takes place in the Pavilion, but also in Vienna. Pavilion Commissioner Elke Delugan-Meissl and curatorial team Sabine Dreher and Christian Muhr from Liquid Frontiers, commissioned three architectural and design practices - Caramel Architekten, EOOS, and nextENTERprise - to work with NGOs and plan the adaptation of vacant buildings for the temporary accommodation of people awaiting for their asylum claims to be processed.

Caramel Architekten developed a system for an emergency shelter in a 1970s office building. The system - dubbed "Home Made" - consists of a parasol, textile panels, and cable ties and can be easily installed as proved by a video on YouTube.

These self-contained spaces can provide privacy and recreate a minimum of domesticity; similar textile units were also designed for other purposes including a dining room, a children's space and an area of greenery, but the best thing about them is that they can be easily dismantled and taken to another location.

Design team EOOS developed a concept for the adaptation of a former training facility in Vienna that the studio is equipping with a new range of furniture such as counters, shelves, tables and wall panels.

The main aim of the project is creating new opportunities to work. To this aim the design practice wrote a Social Furniture manifesto and published a catalogue (downloadable at this link) containing instructions on how to assemble the 18 furniture elements for areas destined for living, working and cooking.

The furniture can be built economically, but residents can also self-organise, and share and exchange resources, so that the DIY concept behind these pieces is transformed into a new principle - "DIT", or "do it together" (a key motto also for the "Home Made" project that involved a group of refugee women from Afghanistan who worked on sewing the fabric for the structure partitions).

Indeed, as the "Social Furniture" manifesto states: "Social Furniture are not second or third-class furniture – they are the expression of a worldview rooted in collectivity and common welfare" and "Social Furniture can be manufactured in a collective self-building process. The workshop is part of the project".

The nextENTERprise architectural practice has been focusing on the fourth and fifth floor of a partly vacant 1980s office building in the southern part of Vienna.

The practice developed "room-in room" implants, that is small self-contained living and working spaces that will be tested with aid organization Caritas for the next three years in a residential project called HAWI involving refugees and students.

All these projects offer living spaces, while asking architects to reconsider current global issues and find new solutions to social housing issues. The projects also leave behind the external appearance of the buildings to take into consideration new aspects such as spatial transformations that can offer temporary shelter and establish the basis for social coexistence. At the same time they generate new questions about how our cities, homes and public spaces should be designed and used and how architecture can continue to fulfill its public duty.

Austrian photographer Paul Kranzler accompanied the work of the three architectural and design offices with visual essays that show how people work, interact and rest in each of the three projects.

While the theme of the pavilion resonates well with the current migrant crisis, these interventions actually have a wider and more global impact when we think that affordable living is central to contemporary society and it is not just a temporary issue linked with the refugee crisis. Besides, since these projects tend to tell stories about the collectivity they also prove that - while Europe's unity may be unsteady and shaky - our future is not in divisions, but in cooperation, cohesion, and social functionality.

Entitled "Art of Many and The Right to Space", the Danish Pavilion focuses on creating high quality architecture that benefits the community rather than just a selected minority.

Curated by architect Boris Brorman Jensen and philosopher Kristoffer Lindhardt Weiss, the space looks a bit like an art gallery and archive at the same time since it is divided in two parts.

One section features a video installation about Professor Jan Gehl, critic and advocate for respecting human beings in architecture; the other includes a vast cabinet of curiosities containing 130 models of projects.

The models are displayed along a structure made of scaffolds, so visitors have to climb different levels to discover the various projects. The models are made using the most disparate materials, but, while in yesterday's post we looked at an installation that invited people to consider the importance of building materials, in this case the purpose of the buildings (rather than the material) presented is more relevant.

The projects show that architecture is not about creating fancy showcases and prestigious projects for a minority and mass-produced building stock for the majority, but about designing something that benefits the community, offers people innovative spatial interpretations that respect democracy and society, and improves the quality of their lives.

All these models are therefore associated with humanistic ideas, a theme that the curators include also in their official statement for this pavilion.

The latter affirms that humanism is a central leitmotif in Danish architecture, and that "The ideal of focusing on the human dimension permeates the official architecture policy, dominates contemporary architectural discourse and is highlighted time and again when Danish architects talk about their visions and projects."

The various projects are divided according to the agendas tackled inside the pavilion that mainly looks at five themes: "Beyond Luxury" explores the link between wealth and consumption and the way we are finishing natural resources and invites architects to redefine luxury to ensure quality of life for all (some projects remind visitors that, while Copenhagen ranks among the cities with the highest quality of life, the Danish population has the highest level of personal debt in the world, driven by the gap between housing prices and wages); "Designing Life", looks at the impact of architecture on human beings; "Climbing Space" is about creating environments for public life and putting people first to create an ideal of open society; "Exit Utopia", hints instead at a potential alliance between people, the built environment and nature, and "Pro Community" at a future powered by strong communities.

While the agendas analysed in the pavilion move from the Danish welfare state's vision, the humanist trend in Danish architecture, the local co-operative movement and the housing movement's ambitions to guarantee equal access to affordable housing, the curators also highlight in their research that there are many challenges to face nowadays.

Architects have to deal with other issues such as climate changes, tough living conditions and ghettoization of communities, not to mention scarcity of resources and cutbacks, problems that quite often prove that humanism is a utopia that can exist on paper but that it is difficult to put into practice.

Yet, as a platform of discussion the exhibition works pretty well as it poses questions and suggests some solutions, without looking just at style, but at content and context, and also invites visitors to consider how a new generation of architects is renovating old ideas (see The Mountain in Ørestad by BIG that finds its ancestor in the social housing projects of the late 1960s in Northern Copenhagen - so rediscovering the past to find solutions for the future may be a trend).

"We want this exhibition to show that, day in and day out, Danish architects engage in all sorts of small battles to raise the bar for good architecture and to enhance the quality of life for the people of Denmark in general," Jensen and Weiss conclude in a press release. "They do this by constantly challenging themselves and their environment, not just by solving tasks, but also by elevating them into something special. What makes architects in Denmark remarkable is their insistence on expanding potential and scope in just about every single project."

November 25, 2016

The aphorism "gnothi seauton" - "know thyself" - had different meanings in Ancient Greek: it was a memento mori-like warning, but also an invitation to know your own place and not to pay attention to the opinion of the multitude.

But, while it is important to know ourselves and our limits, people working in a creative industry should also be aware of another aphorism – "know your materials".

Indian architect Anupama Kundoo has been applying these mottos to her practice for more than two decades.

In her opinion, a solid knowledge of the needs and materials of a specific area allows indeed to create innovative and useful designs.

In her practice she has therefore chosen to study the culture and the materials offered by a place to unlock their potential and discover how the former deals with the latter.

Yet, paying attention to all these things may not guarantee a good piece of architecture, that's why she brings in her research and practice, a third element - the human soul - and tries to design places for the spirit, in search of a spiritual dimension.

Kundoo installed in the Arsenale a full-scale low-cost house with a toilet showing the uses and applications of ferrocement, a lightweight material ideal to prefabricate.

This eco-friendly structure was created following principles such as affordability and inspired by the desire to find alternative solutions to build using significantly fewer materials.

The house is surrounded one on side by a long row of tables on which the architect displayed 1:50 models from her 25 years in practice.

Models include the "Light Housing", huts, low cost housing projects, homes for homeless children, a youth hostel, and the Braille library in Pondicherry.

On the other side of the pefab house, a long row of tables is instead covered with physical samples showing her research into materials.

The materials vary, going from natural and organic to industrial and artificial: there are coconut and jute fibres and ropes; unfired clay, soils, gravel and stones, but also chicken and welded mesh; pigments and coloured tiles; book pages, milk cartons and glass and plastic bottles.

Samples of ferrocement with glass fiber mesh or hexagonal mesh point towards the possibilities that these materials can offer, while reminding us about the crafts that can be created by a skilled workforce.

In a statement on her site Kundoo states: "The key to building an affordable future must be education. My architectural projects are about building knowledge across the community – craftspeople, engineers, designers, students, manufacturers, users – and empowering them to get the housing they need and can afford to have. The emphasis is on affordability through efficiency and inclusivity."

From a creative point of view the materials are particularly interesting as they show what can be made by recycling products and minimizing waste: Kundoo's team reused materials from the 2015 Art Biennale's German Pavilion to build the installation and, through collaboration with Rebiennale, a local team of activists, will reconstruct the Full Fill Home prototype post exhibition to make it fit for use by the homeless people in nearby Marghera.

Kundoo's affordable housing units and principles seem to go against the capitalist forces ruling our world at the moment, and they represent an alternative to the more controversial and aggressive tones (that won him epithets such as "the Donald Trump of architecture"...) of architects such as Zaha Hadid Architects director Patrick Schumacher who, speaking at the World Architecture festival in Berlin about London's housing crisis recently suggested to privatise all public space (streets, squares, parks, etc.) and abolish social and affordable housing.

A statement by Kundoo on the walls of the Arsenale reads: "By helping communities to fabricate a set of simple building components, we can build knowledge and bring housing back to the people." It would be interesting to hear Kundoo's reply to Schumacher's views.

November 24, 2016

Yesterday it was announced that, for the first time, the 15th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice (until 27th November 2016) will host part of the filming for the Venice New Year's Concert, which will be broadcast live on Sunday January 1st, 2017 throughout Europe.

Principal dancers Emanuela Montanari and Antonino Sutera, will perform with sixteen artists from the Ballet Company of Milan's Teatro alla Scala in the rooms of the Corderie, Sale d'Armi and Tese dei Soppalchi of Venice's Arsenale, dancing on Giuseppe Verdi and Benjamin Britten's music.

Gianluca Schiavoni’s choreographed sequences will find a stage in the settings provided by the installations of the exhibition "Reporting From the Front", curated by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, and in particular around one project currently on display at the Pavilion of Turkey, "Darzanà: Two Arsenals, One Vessel".

Curated by Feride Çiçekoğlu, Mehmet Kütükçüoğlu and Ertuğ Uçar, with curatorial collaborators Cemal Emden and Namık Erkal, this could be considered as an art and architecture project about frontier infringement and hybridity with strong links with linguistics.

"Darzanà" means dockyard and it is a hybrid word, like the Turkish word "tersane" and the Italian word "arsenale". These words are derived from the same root, the Arabic dara's-sina'a (place of industry) and they originate from the common language that developed in the Mediterranean from the 11th to the 19th century among people such as sailors, travellers, merchants, and warriors.

The background of the project is therefore a shared experience, a common ground between the arsenals of Istanbul and Venice.

The shared language or lingua franca of the Mediterranean area corresponds in this case to an architectura franca: dockyards in both the cities had similar sizes and featured large shipsheds.

The curators found therefore architectural and linguistic similarities to prove that the two cities have a lot in common and tackled in this way themes such as confinement within borders of religion, language, race, nationality, ethnicity and gender.

The project team - Caner Bilgin, Emine Hande Ciğerli, Gökçen Erkılıç, Nazlı Tümerdem and Yiğit Yalgın - then proceeded to put together an installation inspired by all these issues, a 30 metre long vessel named "Baştarda" (from "bastardo"), a word that indicates a cross between a galley and a galleon and is propelled by oars and sails.

The vessel occupies one of the rooms of the Sale d'Armi and is entirely made of abandoned materials found in the old dockyard of Istanbul and transported to Venice to suggest a new connection with the Mediterranean. The structure represents a hybrid way to bridge the gap between cultures and shipyards.

The vessel comprises over 500 pieces - among them wooden molds, measurement units (endaze) and discarded furniture left in the arsenale of Istanbul after the major shipbuilding industry was replaced.

All the pieces are arranged in a visually pleasing composition: in some cases the project team ordered them following a colour scheme; in others geometric principles seemed to prevail, maybe as a reference to the House of Geometry, the first Ottoman school applying western scientific methodology, founded in 1775.

When the Biennale closes, the "Baştarda" will be sent back to Turkey where it will be displayed in a museum.

The "Baştarda" can be interpreted as a wider metaphor that doesn't only point towards common and shared languages and architectural constructions and styles: it is indeed a means of transport that could infringe borders, reminding us at the same time about the migrant crisis and the many people who died attempting to cross the Mediterranean in the last few years.

According to the catalogue notes, the structure also carries the stories and memories of times past, and is therefore a vehicle of "love at last sight" (an expression the curators borrowed from Walter Benjamin's quote: "The delight of the urban poet is love - not at first sight but at last sight").

Employing the "Baştarda" as the background for a dancing performance will be another way to break frontiers and boundaries between cultures, human beings and disciplines as well, while creating zones of reconciliation.

The "Darzanà" project is accompanied by a very intriguing catalogue: edited by Feride Çiçekoğlu and featuring texts by Namık Erkal and Vera Costantini and photographs by Cemal Emden, it features images of the research behind the project, with a visual history of the dockyards located along the northern shores of the famed estuary of the Bosphorus Strait known as Golden Horn or Haliç.

Commissioned by Het Nieuwe Instituut and curated by Malkit Shoshan, the space is entitled "Blue: Architecture of Peacekeeping Missions". The pavilion is wrapped in a blue tent and infused in a blue light, symbolic colours hinting at the fact that some UN peacekeeping missions are located in the desert region of the Touareg, known as "blue men" because of their indigo clothing, and they are carried out by the UN Blue Helmets.

Architect and founder of the architecture think tank FAST, Shoshan studied the progressive way that The Netherlands contributes to United Nations peacekeeping missions in the Sahel, in cities devastated by poverty, disease, sickness, hunger, conflicts, climate change.

UN military bases are usually conceived as self-sustaining islands characterised by extreme design: they are shut off from their surroundings by barbed wire and trenches; they integrate wells, power and waste treatment plants and hospitals, but do not contribute to improving the lives of the inhabitants of these regions.

UN peacekeeping missions started in 1948 and the first period of the missions closed with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The second generation of missions started at the end of the Cold War and lasted until 9/11. This second phase registered a change in trends with peacekeepers moving from the borders of the cities and operating on a military, political, social and humanitarian level (think about the missions in Kosovo). The third phase goes from 9/11 to the "War on Terror" and mainly revolves around large militarized missions operating in inhabited areas.

Shoshan proposes in the pavilion new solutions to make sure that the bases can be turned into proper spaces for the local communities and into catalysts for local developments. The architect suggests therefore to add a fourth "D" - standing for Design - to the UN "Guidelines for the Integrated Approach" that reunite Defense, Diplomacy, and Development.

Shoshan introduces in the pavilion a four-step process to integrate the UN bases into the local society: the program starts with the "Exchange" phase (first interaction with the community at the beginning of a mission), continues with the "Interface" (second period after the base is constructed offering the civilian population medical treatment and access to water food and electricity) and the "Shared Space" (the peacekeepers and the local community deliver projects together, in a secure environment) and culminates in the "Post-Mission" phase (the state of the city once the mission is gone and the structures are maintained by the local population).

The pavilion features models of this four-step process; examples of African nomadic architectures juxtaposed to the military-type tents adopted by explorers and missionaries in the 19th century; a reconstruction of a playground by Dutch Aldo van Eyck, who travelled to Africa and was fascinated by Mali, a place that prompted him to write architectural poems, and a case study of Camp Castor in Gao, occupying a third of the size of the city and placed in a central area for the future growth of the city.

In a previous post about the announcement of the theme for this pavilion we noted how Mali and peacekeeping missions may not have anything to do with fashion, but there is a solitary high heeled shoe on display inside the pavilion, linked with a story of a woman as recounted by journalist Peter Chilson.

In May 2012 Chilson was in Bandiagara, Mali, shortly after the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) - an organization fighting to make northern Mali (an area known as Azawad) an independent homeland for the Tuareg people - had taken control of the region and were initially backed by the Islamist group Ansar Dine. At the time, smaller Islamist groups began imposing strict Sharia law and Chilson witnessed many people burning objects they owned (books, DVDs, CDs, photographs...) that may have got them in trouble with Islamist policemen.

One woman in a traditional African dress and a headscarf ran out of a villa that housed the aid office with a shopping bag containing a few pairs of high heeled shoes, and threw the bag in the fire. In the pavilion, the solitary high heeled shoe should not be interpreted from a literal fashion perspective, but in a metaphorical way as a symbol of desire, freedom, and a glimpse of normality and vanity in a place of conflict.

Interested in the theme of conflicts and architecture? On November 26th at the Giardini (ASAC Library at Central Pavilion, 11.00 am) there will be a talk entitled "Conflicts", featuring Milinda Pathiraja (Robust Architecture Workshop), Jaeuun-Choi (Studio Jaeeun-Choi and Shigeru Ban Architects), Manuel Herz and Robert Jan van Pelt (School of Architecture, University of Waterloo), Alejandro Aravena, director of this year's biennale, and the President of the Biennale, Paolo Baratta.

November 22, 2016

These days it is almost impossible not to stumble upon features, banners and adverts reminding us about Black Friday and Christmas shopping lists. It is indeed that dreaded time of the year when everybody seems ready to suggest us what to buy for our dearest ones. Calendars are an obvious choice, but, if you think they are boring and useless in our digital age and can't find anything genuinely original, think twice, because there is one out there that will make a great present for art, fashion and photography fans - Dina Goldstein's "Modern Girl" 2017 calendar.

The latter features images from Goldstein's latest photographic series inspired by the Chinese tradition and by iconic advert images produced around the 1930s in Shanghai.

If you are familiar with Goldstein's work, you will know that the artist calls herself a "Pop Surrealist" since she usually borrows pop themes, colours, elements and images, and plays with them in a powerful way.

A few examples? In her "Fallen Princesses" (2007-2009) series she explored the "happily ever after" motif in a tragicomic way, destroying the myth of the joyful ending by showing a series of Disney princesses in unlikely places and poses, from a Cinderella characters getting drunk in a seedy bar to Belle (from Beauty & The Beast) resorting to plastic surgery.

In "The Dollhouse", we discover instead that Barbie and Ken do not have the dreamy and glamorous life of the plastic icons we all imagined. Little details such as perilously high platform shoes at Ken's feet reveal he has been a victim of an imposed marriage, but has finally decided to break from his chains and reveal his individuality (while Barbie gets extremely frustrated…).

Deities from polytheistic to Abrahamic traditions find themselves dealing with everyday situations in Goldstein's series entitled "Gods Of Suburbia", that challenges ancient ethics and morals in a society characterized by materialism.

Consumerism is explored in a very clever way also in Goldstein's "Modern Girl": the Chinese pin ups look beautifully serene and elegantly sophisticated, but in the images they are just exploited to sell fictitious consumer products that comment about our obsessions with beauty, health and wellness.

One of the sophisticated poster girls is surrounded by an avalanche of pink perfumes, nail varnish bottles, luxury luggage, cars, shoes and champagne; other girls are instead used to advertise a selection of hilariously bizarre products. The "Insta World" advert promises everything instantly - from beauty and youth to sex; there are popsicles that simulate feelings of love; sprays that re-create the smell of pizza and fried chicken; fresh air tins from Canada air (a way to sort out China's pollution problems), a Revenge Agency (because we all need to revenge after all…), human organs that grow in 30 days from a tissue sample, a memory device and idea pills.

While the original Chinese adverts that used pin ups to imitate American ads embodied the symbolical Western political and imperial dominance, these adverts reveal the collective misery of consumerism, a world in which beauty and kitsch are juxtaposed and where the female body is once again exploited to sell products. The images also create a further dichotomy between traditions and modern times.

You can admire Goldstein's new photographic tableaux at the Virginie Barrou Planquart Gallery, Paris (until 27 November), or you can opt to see the series every day in your house or at your office by getting the "Modern Girl" calendar from Goldstein's site. The calendar will not guarantee you get your Insta Youth or Insta Beauty fix, but the images will surely make your day.